WWCEP do: Swastika graffiti in my neighborhood

[mdgirl]

I live in a very nice neighborhood in Seattle. My husband and I walked to lunch today and there was a yellow swastika painted on the sidewalk in front of house on the next block of our street. The paint was dry, so it's not brand new, and was big enough (about a foot square) that I would have noticed it before, so it likely happened within the past few days. It's right at the bottom of the steps from the yard to sidewalk--you'd have to walk on it to get down from the last step. I have no idea who lives in the house. It recently had a "for lease" sign out front, which is now gone, so new people might have just moved in.

Would you call the police? That was my suggestion, but my husband thought they wouldn't be able to do anything. I figure it's been reported, but if it hasn't this would bring it to their attention and if it has it would be another report to show that it's a concern in the neighborhood.

My other thought was to post about it on Next Door (without citing the address of the house), but I'm not sure that's appropriate or would accomplish anything.

This is really upsetting to me. I'd like to do something, but I'm not sure what can be done.

[tacokick]

Do you have a nonemergency line? Ours handles graffiti and can escalate things if need be.

[pixy0stix]

Call the non-emergency line of the police dept.

If they don't do something in a day or 2, or indicate that something will be done in a week, take some paint and cover it up.

[josieposy]

I'd call the non-emergency line. Or see if the city has a system where you can report things like damaged sidewalks, streetlight outages, etc (my city actually has an app for this). Or make a stink on the city's facebook page.

[RoxMonster]

Either call the nonemergency police line or a dedicated department within your city (here we even have an app where we can take a picture of something like this and send it in and it will be delegated to the appropriate dept--does your city have something like this?)

[mdgirl]

Jul 3, 2016 18:23:43 GMT -5 RoxMonster said:

Either call the nonemergency police line or a dedicated department within your city (here we even have an app where we can take a picture of something like this and send it in and it will be delegated to the appropriate dept--does your city have something like this?)

We do, so thank you to everyone for suggesting that. You could specify that it was a graffiti report and whether it was hateful, so hopefully that will escalate it.

[mdgirl]

Jul 3, 2016 23:13:18 GMT -5 tryingtobehappy said:

Are you sure it is not an inverted swastika? An inverted swastika is a sign of good luck in the Hindu culture and often used when renting/owning a new house.

I actually don't know, but it was definitely paint. I tried to rub it a bit with my shoe and it didn't budge. That would be quite a relief though.

[LoveTrains]

I would definitely call the police. I live in the traditionally Jewish neighborhood in my city and in the past two years someone spray painted a swastika and handed out leaflets with them. Both times it was all over the neighborhood list-serv, the police investigated, and it was in the paper. I live in a city smaller than Seattle but it's the largest in my state (around 175,000 people) and the police investigated it as a hate crime.

Frankly I'm surprised no one else has called it in yet.

[katietornado]

This happened in my neighborhood a couple of years ago. They painted swastikas and some mangled German phrases. Turns out it was some dumb teenagers who had zero idea wtf they were doing.

Call the city to have it removed ASAP.